Dirty Laundry on the Bottleneck Trail

It rained off and on during our week in the Okanagan Valley but we have no problem with a bit of down time.  Howard plays with his cute little magnetized chess set purchased in Port Townsend, practicing strategies from the The Mammoth Book of Chess.  He then tries them out with a game against the computer. 


I go through photos, editing and playing with Picasa, my program of choice.  Their Orton-ish feature allows you to create a painting/postcard effect that works great with landscapes.  We have lots of books downloaded to our Kindles and just finished James Lee Burke’s Light of the World, an edgy thriller set in rural Montana appropriately described by the heading of Good and Evil by a Library of Congress cataloger.


In between showers we went for short drives and hiked along the park’s trails, all the way to the south campground and back.  This involves a distance of 3 miles or so with a lot of up and down.  The sun did come out for the weekend so we decided to check out a few of the wine trails.  Yes, there is Dirty Laundry involved.


The Bottleneck Wine Trail is a peaceful meander off the busy highway near Summerland and offers spectacular scenery overlooking vineyards and orchards high above Lake Okanagan.  The Dirty Laundry Winery is a destination in itself.  Named after a laundry years ago which had a brothel at the back, this theme runs through everything from the laundry pins at the gate to the old laundry equipment in the garden. You even pass a clothes line hung with underwear to get into the shop!  You can bring your own basket of goodies or purchase from the menu on the Terrace patio and admire the gorgeous view.  You can’t go wrong with a sip of Bordello, an exotic swirl of cabernet sauvignon and merlot with a dash of cab franc!








That was the scene at Dirty Laundry!  We ended our day back at Bonitas Winery for an early tapas-style dinner by the lake and near our campground, sharing the very best crab and goat cheese dip on flat bread, Asian-style ribs, and white chocolate cheesecake topped with fresh berry compote for dessert.



For some reason, in our minds, we were leaving on Tuesday.  Not so once I re-checked the reservation receipt.  We must leave on Monday by 11 a.m, which means one less day to see the Myra Canyon Trestles trail or the Naramata Bench wineries near Penticton. There is always next time!  The Okanagan is a fabulous destination, though I will say during a busy holiday week the traffic, especially around Kelowna, was  hectic.  More from along the road…..